


(now I know) why they name hurricanes after people

by dawittiest



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Negotiated Kink, This Is Not a Getting Together Fic, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 04:31:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawittiest/pseuds/dawittiest
Summary: Elektra sweeps through Matt’s life like a hurricane. His way of dealing with the aftermath might just be wrecking things more. Foggy really should know better than this, but he never could say no to Matt Murdock.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enthusiasmgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/gifts).



> EnthusiasmGirl – thank you for your amazing prompt! This story has eaten my entire life this last month. It just wouldn’t wrap up. I didn’t really do everything I wanted for this fic, but to tell the story I wanted properly I’d need like 100k words and I’m not capable of turning it out under two months.
> 
> There’s like, no Elektra, for which I’m truly sorry, but once I figured out it had to be Foggy’s POV I just couldn’t work her in more. I took some inspiration from Miller’s The Man Without Fear (it’s trash, even though it’s a “classic”, but the show Elektra is heavily influenced by it and it fit nicely).
> 
> A little disclaimer: I love Elektra with all my heart and I love Matt/Elektra but they’re genuinely terrible for each other. I mean, they’re a beautiful train wreck but a train wreck nonetheless.
> 
> Uh, warnings for kinda shitty way of dealing with mental issues. And like, I want to say, sometimes all too human behavior? Relationships are hard and people suck a lot. But it’s not all that angsty. No, really.
> 
> Happy holidays!

Foggy’s the one who suggests they crash the party.

It comes to him during Torts lecture. His hand is cramping from taking notes he barely processes, and it’s too easy to tune in into a whispered conversation taking place a row down. One of the girls’ brother, the story goes, is a waiter at the Embassy hotel and sometimes lets her sneak into fancy faculty parties to sip Appletini and munch on the shrimp cocktail that she enthusiastically maintains is worth a mild allergic reaction.

Free booze and shmancy appetizers do sound enticing, moreso as Foggy’s weekend is painfully date-free. For once, he’s kicking law school’s ass instead of the other way around – in a couple of weeks when classes get into full swing this state of things will be but a fond memory, so it’s a cause for celebration. And never let it be said that Foggy Nelson misses out on an opportunity to let his hair down.

Unfortunately, his best friend is an unsociable hermit, and a lighter school load for him means getting a head start on future material. That’s the guy who reads law review for fun; but that’s also the guy who once bet (and crushingly lost) his entire month’s budget in a poker game because he’s never turned down a dare in his life, so Foggy hunts him down in the darkest corner of the library and appeals to his spirit of adventure.

“I have to study,” is Matt’s predicable response. Foggy groans with feeling.

“Dude, you have been studying! In fact, you are studying as we speak,” he points out, as Matt’s fingers continue to skim over the pages of what he assumes is a textbook like this conversation is already over. Matt’s not even being subtle about it; it’s a dismissal if he’s ever saw one but Foggy’s mastered the art of pretending he doesn’t know when he’s not wanted. “You need to take a break or your brain’s gonna blue screen of death on you and wipe all your data, and you won’t even be able to call an IT guy to try and salvage some of it. Just, hours and hours of late night cramming sessions, _poof_ , gone!”

Matt scrunches his nose, amusement shining through the cracks in his I’m-so-handsome-and-polite-and-totally-toothless smile he uses to get out of things. It’s hard to reconcile with how transparent it is to Foggy now that there’s ever been a time he fell for this con.

“I don’t—I don’t think it works that way, Fog.”

“Do you want to find out?” Foggy presses, like a telemarketer who won’t pause for a breath trying to keep his victim on the line. “Because that would be a travesty. Imagine the headlines _: Promising law student studies too much, flunks all exams. More at five_.” Matt releases a little plosive exhale and tilts his head up, as if asking the heavens for patience. “Come on, man! Your law books will be there tomorrow ready to welcome you back into their tender embrace and you’ll absorb much more information with a clear head.”

“That’s a funny way to refer to hangover,” Matt says, the hard set of his shoulders thawing. Foggy gives a celebratory fist pump.

“Yes! Nelson and Murdock hit the streets at last! We’ll integrate you into society yet, my friend.”

Matt lets out a huff of laugh.

“I didn’t say I’m gonna, uh, ‘hit the streets’ with you, Foggy.”

“But you didn’t say you’re not gonna, either,” Foggy points out and slaps Matt on the back. “Let’s go, Elphie, we gotta gussy up before the ball.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a suit,” Matt remarks, collecting his things with a studiously tepid expression.

“Hilarious, Matthew. I’m giving you a superbly unimpressed glare right now. It’s devastating.” Matt snickers. “But while it is tragic that you can’t get an eyeful of this – here I’m indicating my humble self – it might be a blessing in disguise.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll have you know that I clean up _very_ nice and if you were actually able to see it, you probably would hopelessly fall in love with me at first sight. Rooming together could get awkward.” That makes Matt snort too loud for him not to be a little offended.

“Yeah, thank god,” he agrees. “Your charming personality is damning enough, coupled with dashing looks I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Murdock,” Foggy informs him, even as he offers Matt his elbow on the way out of the library. He should tactfully shut down this line of conversation; it’s veering dangerously close into the flirting territory and Foggy doesn’t need more fuel for his stupid, _inappropriate_ gay crush. “Just for that, you’re paying for our ride or I’m ditching you at prom,” he adds, because he likes to live on the edge.

“You wouldn’t,” Matt says confidently, quirking his lips and yeah – it’s no secret Foggy’s a sucker for that smile.

 

Eating gross rich people food in the kitchen by himself gets old after a while, so Foggy ventures to the party, wondering what happened to that beer Matt promised him.

He weaves expertly between the covert and a few overt disapproving glances the less gracious guests send his way, craning his neck scouring the room for his best friend. If Matt’s made it to the bar, he got the drinks and left already, but the crowd isn’t dense enough for him to get lost in it; odd. Matt is not exactly an inconspicuous person, with the cane and his unreal movie star looks, plus Foggy’s conditioned himself so that he’s always automatically scanning his environment for that mop of dark brown hair. His eyes can usually pinpoint Matt under five minutes at any location – provided he’s there, which he appears not to be. Foggy ducks into the men’s room on the off-chance that Matt’s managed to drown in the toilet or something… which is probably creepy, and more than a little insulting, but the back of his neck is starting to prickle from the unfavorable eyes and sneaking into fancy parties in not that fun alone. Matt’s not in any of the stalls, though, so Foggy retraces his steps to the kitchen in a faint hope to find Matt there, somehow having missed each other.

Matt is not in the kitchen. Foggy goes back to picking at the food listlessly; expected as much yet still let down – the title of his autobiography. The fish eggs taste like chewed gum. He mills them for a while in his mouth without making any progress on it, before he pulls out his phone. He dials Matt – call not text; Matt takes weeks to respond to messages, if he bothers at all – and listens to the tone until it goes to voicemail.

 

 _“_ _Uh, buddy, where are you? You kind of disappeared on me. Did you go get that beer for me at the corner store? Just—um. I’m in the kitchen, consuming a year’s worth of my grocery expenses in disgusting finger food, come join the party.”_

 

 _“_ _Matt? You know it’s been fifteen minutes. I’ve made some bad dietary choices in your absence. I’m moderately nauseous and contemplating one last fish eggs serving with your name on it. Get your ass here or I’m gonna eat it anyway.”_

 

 _“_ _Did you go back to the dorm? Because if you really didn’t want to come that bad, you could’ve just told me. I would’ve left you alone. Ish. It’s just, this isn’t cool. Call me back.”_

 

 _“_ _Matt, did something happen? If something happened, call me. Or, just call me. I’m kind of starting to freak out.”_

 

 _“_ _I’m at the dorm and you’re not here. Where the hell are you, Matt? I’m not joking. This is my serious voice. You’re not there by morning, I’m telling you now, I’m calling the cops. Please call me if you haven’t been kidnapped.”_

 

The night stretches on like melted cheese.

Around one a.m. Foggy folds and goes to bed only to toss around restlessly, his sheets unusually itchy and the bad spring in his mattress more insistent than it was just yesterday. Whenever he starts drifting off, a phantom ring jerks him back awake, but there’s no missed calls on his phone. The dawn is starting to break when he tires himself into unconsciousness and in few hours he wakes up to his entire body aching like it ran a marathon in his sleep.

Foggy glances across the room at Matt’s bed, pristine and undisturbed since he made it up last. A worry knot is forming in the pit of his stomach, which Foggy tries his best to tune out getting ready for his 10 a.m. class; he tells himself firmly that if Matt doesn’t turn up by the time he gets back, he’s calling the cops for real.

Coincidentally, it’s a class he shares with Matt, and between his sleep-deprived zombie state and the knot tightening in his belly every time he catches a glimpse of Matt’s empty seat, it’s safe to say Foggy doesn’t get much out of it. The only thought flittering in his head is that Matt has never missed a class before.

Coming back, Foggy approaches their room like he would a wild animal. Right now it’s a Schrödinger's dorm – until he opens the door, Matt is both there and not. And if he’s not there—Foggy can’t allow himself to think what he’ll do then. Can’t allow himself to think of many reasons why a blind man might disappear in the middle of the night in New York City. He doesn’t know how long he’s been stewing in paralyzing anxiety, when he hears a faint thud coming from the room. Before he realizes Foggy’s yanking the door open and Matt—Matt’s _there_.

Tension sputters out of him like air from a released balloon.

Matt inclines his head in Foggy’s direction, this little quirk of his that’s usually so endearing, and momentarily stops wrangling with his tie.

“Foggy, is that you?” he asks distractedly, fiddling with his collar; he’s still wearing the suit from yesterday. “I kinda could use a little help here—”

“What the hell,” Foggy splutters.

Matt frowns, for once not freakishly attuned to Foggy’s present mood.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been trying to undo this knot but I think I just made it worse, if you would just…”

Foggy slams the door closed and jabs a finger at him. Matt twitches.

“ _You!_ ” He distantly hears this weird squealy-breathless shouting voice coming out of his mouth but it’s beyond his control. “You, last night!” Welp, there goes all his eloquence. “What the hell! I called you like a million times!”

His little outburst has Matt squirming uncomfortably; he touches his ear, twisting his lips in a strained not-quite-smile.

“Yeah, uh, sorry, I haven’t checked my phone.”

“You haven’t—” Foggy seems to have lost the ability to speak in full sentences. “I thought you were _taken_ , what—” Matt’s eyebrows skyrocket but he’s too agitated to care. “Where the hell were you?”

A beat passes. Matt shuffles in his spot, averting his face.

“I… um.”

The adrenaline-induced haze is lifting and Foggy’s beginning to notice things; like that Matt’s shirt is askew, the top few buttons are missing, and his hair is even more of a mess than usual, and the longer Foggy looks at him, the redder the tips of his ears get.

“No. No way.” He has to sit down. “You did _not_ have a hookup while I was worried sick that you were bleeding out short one kidney in a back alley somewhere.” Matt smacks his lips and lets out a small exhale.

“That, that’s excessive…”

“No, I barely got any sleep because I was already filling out a missing person’s report in my head, and you’re telling me this all could’ve been avoided if you just _said something_ before you ditched me in the middle of a party to screw a random heiress?”

At that Matt has the decency to look a little guilty. Which is terrible because Foggy has no defenses against that sad kicked puppy face.

“Listen, Foggy, I…”

“You know what—forget it,” Foggy cuts him off with a vague handwave, even though Matt can’t see it. The fight has all but evaporated from him. “Just, you’re the one who’s gonna beg Lawrence for his notes this time. I didn’t get a single word of the class today because of you,” he says, without any real bite.

A soft little smile makes its way onto Matt’s lips and Foggy’s heart skitters. Yeah, that… that would be why he can never truly stay mad at him.

“You got it, pal,” Matt agrees easily. Then he frowns again, pulling on his tie; it’s more of a noose by now. Foggy rolls his eyes good-naturedly and pushes himself up from the bed.

“Come on, lemme.” Matt drops his hands, giving him space.

“This is useless,” Foggy comments after a moment of futile struggle. “You should just cut it off, it’s past saving now.” He gives it a couple more tugs anyway, not wanting to pull back from Matt just yet.

“So how was the heiress?” he pipes up. “Did you do it on antique furniture, surrounded by precious works of art?”

Matt snorts with laughter, his warm breath making Foggy’s face tingle.

“Well, I wouldn’t know about the art. And she’s a diplomat’s daughter,” he says, and doesn’t say anything more, and smiles all through Foggy’s prodding like he has a secret.

 

Neither of them bring up the incident again in the days that follow, and Foggy figures that’s that until Friday night rolls around.

This week he had his first crying in the public bathroom episode to officially kick off the semester, so tonight he stays in, buried elbow deep in study materials alongside Matt.

50 pages later he can’t read words anymore, instead doodling a badly rendered profile of Matt in the margin of his textbook (in pencil because these books are _expensive_ ) and his, admittedly, a tad ambitious resolve to “become a Hermione Granger of civil procedure law” is slowly crumbling. Foggy’s idly contemplating whether he can get away with another snack break before the end of this chapter, when Matt closes the book he’s been reading with finality and shoves down his pants.

See, Matt _keeps doing_ things like this. Early into their friendship, Foggy’s learned firsthand Matt appears to be under the impression that walking around half-naked is socially acceptable behavior – one of the many perks of rooming with him. Foggy sort of feels guilty that he really doesn’t feel guilty about copping an occasional eyeful. He doesn’t want to make Matt uncomfortable, but what Matt can’t see – literally – can’t hurt him, and besides he’s not the one who prompted this whole dilemma by stripping in front of his susceptible roommate in the first place. It’s a morally gray area but Foggy’s almost a lawyer and that’s where he operates.

Belatedly, having been properly distracted by Matt’s surprisingly toned thighs, Foggy realizes that Matt is putting on his Going Out pants – his nicest jeans, dark and fitting, that really work his assets, and _how_ is beyond him, but the blind bastard knows it – and he lays down his textbook.

“Are we going out?” he asks, standing up. It’s probably—scratch that, it’s definitely irresponsible, but Foggy can’t realistically expect himself to turn Matt down for some dubious quality time with his books. Especially since Matt _never_ initiates their outings.

Matt pauses with his fly still open, a deer in the headlights look made cartoony by his glasses. “Oh, I’m—uh… Um.”

It clicks.

“ _Oh_ , you have a date. Gotcha.” That’s more like the Matt he knows. Foggy flops limply back on the bed. Whatever, his grades will thank him. “Who’s the lucky lady? Not that I doubt your uncanny ability to make people fall half in love with you at first meeting, but I haven’t seen you interacting with another human being, present company excluded, outside the academic setting since… wait. Are you seeing the, what’s-her-name, ambassador’s daughter again?” Matt gives a vague shrug in response. “I can’t believe you—actually, I can. Look, I get that you value your privacy or whatever but I’m your best friend, you have an obligation to tell me these things!”

Matt zips his pants with a laugh.

“You have an abnormal interest in my love life, Foggy.”

“No, _you_ have an abnormal disinterest in this timeless bonding ritual,” Foggy says, lifting his head to fix Matt with a reproving stare that’s sadly lost on him. “You’re in your twenties, you’re supposed to never shut up about sex, especially when you’re actually having it.”

“Exactly how often do you think about me having sex?” Matt asks, a sly grin pulling back over his teeth.

“Timeless bonding ritual,” Foggy reiterates with great dignity. Matt laughs at him again, grabbing his jacket. “Well, you kids have fun. But don’t think you get a pass, Murdock, I have every intention of harassing you for deets later.”

“Bye, Foggy,” Matt says with a little wave that completely undermines his exasperated tone.

“Use protection!” Foggy hollers after him and snickers when Matt flashes the finger on his way out the door.

Matt is not there when he drags himself out of bed the next day, and he’s still not back by the time Foggy’s tucked in with his laptop for the night. When Matt finally reappears, to the backdrop of fiery red sky with the last streaks of light right before the sunset, he’s buzzing with something he won’t say and not really there.

 

“So when I’m finally going to meet your mystery woman?” Foggy breaches the subject one day over cheap beer and reheated pizza. It’s been a while since they just hung out; a couple of words exchanged in passing is the sum of their interactions of late – Matt’s been doing most of the passing, his schedule suddenly packed with his new girlfriend. Foggy’s didn’t think Matt _dated_. He’s not used to sharing him.

“Mhmm?” Matt hums, the way he does when he’s not listening or stalling an answer. His expression, partially obscured by the dark, impassive glasses lenses, provides no further insight.

“ _Am_ I going to meet her?” Foggy presses. “Because I’m starting to think you just made her up.” That is blatantly untrue; the number of classes Matt skipped lately—well, Foggy doesn’t know the exact number, but he has known Matt to power through a lecture with pneumonia. Something is definitely going on with him. He’d suspect Matt’s in some trouble, except he always comes back from his secret rendezvous grinning like a lunatic. Foggy’s never seen him like this.

Matt’s face stays carefully angled down as he fiddles with the label on his beer bottle.

“I don’t… I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” he mumbles.

“Why not?” Foggy asks but he already knows the answer. It must show on him because Matt’s eyebrows furrow and his mouth curls in an unhappy pout.

“It’s not what you think, Fog, it’s just…”

“Dude, it’s fine, I get it.” Foggy aims for “breezy” and makes a valiant effort, at least. “You wanna impress her and introducing her to your lovable yet goofy roommate is not particularly conducive to that—it’s cool.”

“That’s not—Foggy, come on, you’re great.” The giddy rush of warmth that surges in him at Matt’s so casually doled out praise is not something Foggy’s going to get sick of feeling, ever. “You know you’re great, I’m not… _embarrassed_ of you, I’m the opposite of it, she’s just.” He works his jaw. “You’re, you’re very different people, I… don’t think you’d get along, in all honesty.”

Foggy imagines a willowy supermodel-type woman here in their dingy, unkempt dorm room, making polite small talk while wrinkling her dainty little nose at the lingering smell of weed. Okay, he sees Matt’s point.

“Will I at least get a name?” he asks insistently. “Or do you like your man of mystery shtick too much for that?”

Matt stays silent but it’s pensive rather than obstinate. Foggy gives him time.

“Elektra,” he says at last, softly, almost a caress. “Her name is Elektra.”

 

One night a scuffing sound pulls him from sleep.

“Wuh,” Foggy grunts. His mind is still chasing the loose threads of his dream—swirls of smoke and a city on fire. It meant something, but he can’t remember. Gradually, his eyes adapt to the darkness and discern Matt’s silhouette, frozen guiltily against the window.

“Sorry,” Matt whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you.” Foggy rubs at his face.

“What are you doing up,” he mumbles. “It’s ass o’ clock and we have a quiz tomorrow, you should be in bed.” Matt’s face, grainy and bathed in gray hue, comes into sharper focus. “Is that… are you _bleeding_?”

Matt raises his hand and touches his split lip like an afterthought.

“Huh. Didn’t notice.”

Foggy scrambles to sit up. He tries to blink the sandy sleepiness out of his eyes and squints, gauging Matt best he can in the faint streetlight haloing him from behind. Matt’s glasses are missing and his bare eyes are wide and burning.

“Are you—are you high?” Foggy stammers out at a loss. Matt laughs but it sounds wrong, unnaturally guttural and laced with danger.

“Don’t- _heh_ , don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs. He licks the cut on his lip consideringly and smirks; his teeth are smeared with blood. For a blink Foggy’s light-headed with a sick rush.

“Matt…” This is not a conversation he should be having in the middle of the night, still groggy from sleep. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Matt waves him off with a mildly manic smile, which does nothing to quell his rising concern. “I was with Elektra. Go back to sleep,” he says, softer.

Foggy doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He’s tired and his eyelids stick together but Matt is scaring him. He wants to stay awake for this. But he doesn’t know what to do, and Matt remains a silent, ungiving presence at the window, and between one breath and another, Foggy slips back under. In his dream, he watches through bars as a tiger treads restlessly around their room.

Matt doesn’t come to the quiz. He comes later to the dorm, wearing that same crazed grin and a fresh bruise high on the cheek to match his fat lip.

 

* * *

 

“I’m just saying, you can’t always rely on your charm alone to get you out of hot water,” Foggy says as they’re crossing the campus. Walking with Matt to class trading banter like they’ve done a thousand times before – it feels precious, and fragile, and _god_ , Foggy missed this. Missed Matt’s wry smile and warm hand curled in the crook of his arm. Right now, that stupid party he regrets ever mentioning to Matt is just a distant bad memory, and Foggy wants to live in this moment.

“It, uh, it worked so far,” Matt shoots back, a hint of a smirk in the corner of his lips.

“Hubris, my friend,” it makes Matt snort in a very unattractive manner, “isn’t that one of the seven deadly sins?”

The way Matt’s snickering, like everything that comes out of Foggy’s mouth is hilarious, only eggs him on.

“This is no laughing matter! One day you’ll slip on your ‘just an innocent and unreasonably beautiful blind man’ routine and I’ll be there, waiting, to say _I told you so_.” Foggy glances sideways when there’s prolonged quiet. “Hear that, Matt?”

But Matt isn’t listening to him anymore. He cocks his head, something he does at times, like a big puppy dog. Foggy doesn’t get to ask him what do his elf ears hear before a red convertible nearly runs over his toes. His heart jumps as the car skids to a halt. Tires screech on the asphalt, splashing mud on the hem of his pants.

“Hey, watch it!” Foggy glares at the woman behind the wheel, big sunglasses and a headscarf straight from Audrey Hepburn’s closet. The corner of her red mouth curls ever so slightly but otherwise she stays perfectly still, face ahead.

Pressed against his side, Matt freezes. Foggy gives him a look of alarm; Matt has ridiculously poor control over his facial expressions but right now he’s inscrutable, and it’s disturbing. Matt takes a step toward the car – for a second’s flash Foggy’s struck with a wild urge to yank him back by his coat – and effortlessly jumps over the door into the passenger seat like he does it every day. Maybe he does. The woman hits the gas hard and they speed off, kicking up exhaust fumes and more sludge.

“What the fuck,” Foggy says softly to no one in earshot.

Was that… was that _Elektra_?

 

“Had fun?” Foggy asks mildly as Matt slips into their dorm room later when the evening’s blurring into night.

Matt turns in his direction, chin set in a now-familiar expression that’s half guilt, half defiance. His cheeks are such raw pink it must hurt, and his hair is a windswept nest of stiff cowlicks – unsurprising, if he’s spent the entire day street racing with Elektra, or whatever it is the two of them get up to in a flashy sports car. Who drives with the roof down in 50 degrees anyway? It’s like he’s in a bad action movie.

“Now, why I don’t think you’re asking in good faith,” Matt says dryly, sardonic smile twisting his words.

Foggy shuts the book in his lap; it’s not like he’s managed to read any of it.

“You missed the quiz,” he says instead of addressing that statement. “Again.”

“You know, you’re not my keeper, Fog, so…” Matt trails off, something dark and ugly lurking underneath the light surface. Foggy’s not deterred.

“I’m beginning to think you need one.” Matt tenses like a cat bristling its fur: a warning, which Foggy ignores. “Do you _want_ to flunk this semester? ’Cause the way you’re acting, this is where it’s heading, buddy.”

“I appreciate your concern, Foggy,” Matt says in a tart voice that implies he does not appreciate it at all, “but I can take care of myself.” He whips around to where came from.

“Where are you going?” Foggy asks, thrown.

“Out.”

“But you just got here,” he points out. Matt huffs out a derisive hiss.

“Yeah, and suddenly I feel like I need some air.” He stops in the doorway, half turning his face. “Good night, Foggy.”

Matt doesn’t slam the door but somehow it reverberates in his bones deeper than if he did.

 

There’s no reason for his antipathy toward Elektra. He’s barely met her, after that thing with the car, if bumping into her in the hallway leaving Matt and their room wrecked in her wake can be considered that. He doesn’t have enough to go on to form a fair opinion and he shouldn’t try her with no sufficient evidence. There’s no reason for his antipathy toward Elektra; he just feels kind of abandoned by Matt, and he should just swallow that pill and admit it to himself that he’s a little jealous too. Yes, he is jealous of his best friend spending more time with his girlfriend than him; there, he said it. But that’s on him, not on Matt, and certainly not on _her_. For all he knows, Elektra is a lovely person and she and Matt go on nice, wholesome dates to quaint little diners where they share a smoothie and it’s all very _Archie_ and sweet. So, there’s no reason for his antipathy toward Elektra. There’s not. It’s just that… sometimes, when he lays awake at night alone in their shared room with Matt being MIA for two days, Foggy scared for him.

Just last week Matt showed up at the door, fully dressed and dripping wet, and how he got like that, he wouldn’t say. It didn’t rain that day. Foggy shoved him into the bathroom, and made ginger tea while quietly googling symptoms of hypothermia on his phone.

Matt’s never been very careful when it comes to his own well-being but now it’s like he thinks he's invincible; the other option is too disquieting to entertain.

But nothing scares him like watching Matt drop everything whenever the phone calls. Foggy hasn’t known Matt to anything someone told him to do without a fight in his life.

One day he gets sick of watching.

“I’m heading out,” Matt shoots over his shoulder, grabbing his things as he goes.

“With Elektra?” Foggy asks, like it’s a question. It’s always Elektra.

“Yeah.”

“Where?” he inquires. Matt bustles around, the look on his face like he’s already gone wherever he goes.

“Don’t know,” he says distractedly.

“You don’t know?” Foggy raises his eyebrows, even though Matt can’t see that.

Matt shrugs, slipping into his coat.

“Elektra’s pick.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to ask?” Matt shrugs again. “So what, she calls and you just go, no questions asked?”

Matt pauses with his coat hanging from his arm.

“Do you have a problem with Elektra?”

“I don’t have a problem with Elektra,” Foggy lies. The line of Matt’s mouth hardens. “I just don’t like you being at her every beck and call.”

“That’s not…” Matt frowns. “That’s not right. You’re making it sound like something it’s not. It’s not,” he repeats.

Foggy leans back, crossing his arms.

“Isn’t it? So you haven’t been skipping classes just because Elektra told you to come?”

“I… You don’t get it,” Matt says, a frustrated note rising in his voice.

“You’ve been acting crazy because of her, I get that much,” Foggy fires back.

“You don’t understand,” Matt says stubbornly; Foggy wants to tear his hair out.

“Then help me understand!” he bursts. “Talk to me, Matt! I’m supposed to be your best friend and we barely see each other, unless you don’t want to be my friend anymore, which—whatever, it’s your right, but you could’ve at least given me the curtesy of actually telling me that—”

Through Matt’s face flashes a shadow of genuine confusion and Foggy almost bursts to tears right here and there.

“Of course you’re my best friend, Foggy, it’s not…”

“Then what is it,” Foggy asks, beyond exasperated. Matt gives him a little unhappy pout.

“What Elektra and I have… You wouldn’t understand,” he just says again.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence here, buddy,” Foggy sighs, but he suddenly feels too drained to be mad.

“I’m sorry,” Matt offers, which, frankly, amounts to whole lotta nothing.

“Yeah, well,” Foggy says, wishing to be done with this subject. “Just—I’m still here, if you wanna talk. Keep that in mind, okay?”

Matt smiles and says, “I will,” which is code for “as if, sucker!”. Maybe he’s being uncharitable, but he doesn’t feel like giving Matt the benefit of the doubt.

He waves his hand vaguely, not bothering to narrate it.

“Just go, Matt. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

Matt’s face contorts with displeasure.

“Elektra’s not what you make her out to be.” Foggy cannot stifle a disbelieving snort. “I mean it. She… she _gets_ me, like no one ever has.” And isn’t that a kick in the head? But if Matt doesn’t see why that is, Foggy won’t spell it out for him. “If, if you gave her a chance, it would mean a lot to me, Foggy,” Matt says, and that gentle pleading way he says his name renders Foggy helpless.

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs. Matt’s lips relax into a slightest smile, and he nods a little and then he’s gone. Foggy bangs his head on the headboard, sliding down in defeat.

He tries; he does. Elektra makes Matt happy, whatever else she makes him ( _crazy, unreliable, a wild-eyed stranger Foggy recognizes less and less with each passing day_ ) and it’s not fair to call her a bitch, which he does in his mind, guiltily, in his less than finest moments. He won’t be that person; petty and mean, poisoning his friend’s happiness because he’s jealous. So he _tries_.

It’s just increasingly hard when things like this happen.

Foggy’s turned all his stuff upside down looking for last week’s notes and in his desperation he moved on to Matt’s shit, when he pulls one drawer open and stops dead.

“Did—did you _steal_ those?” There’s a small heap of jewelry lying innocuously bundled in a silk scarf, like the one Elektra was wearing that day in the car. He can’t know for sure, but he thinks those are diamonds. Real diamonds. What the hell.

“What?” Matt reaches out and bumps his knuckles against the open drawer. “Oh.”

“ _Oh?_ ”

“We didn’t—we didn’t steal anything, Foggy,” Matt huffs. “They belong to Elektra’s great aunt. And we’re just borrowing.” A faint flush creeps on Matt’s perfectly sculptured cheekbones.

Foggy has to sit down.

“Oh my god. Matt—what do you _think_ will happen to your scholarship when you’re arrested for stealing _literal_ diamonds…”

“ _Not_ stealing.” Matt snaps the drawer shut with a decisive click. “And we’re gonna give it back.”

“Oh, you’re gonna—you’re gonna _return_ to the scene of the crime, that makes me feel so much better about this—”

“There’ll be no returning to the scene of the crime because there was no crime,” Matt barks irritably. “Don’t, don’t be ridiculous, Foggy.”

“Grand theft, I’m assuming, burglary,” Foggy recounts. “That makes a felony. You’d be looking at a lot of jail time. This is Criminal Law 101, Matt.”

“We didn’t steal it,” Matt says curtly. “Okay? We didn’t. Tomorrow we’ll give it back and you’re going to drop this.” Foggy laughs a little hysterically, shaking his head.

Foggy’s not stupid, he can see the disaster coming a mile away, even if Matt stays willfully blind to it (and it’s a testament to the gravity of the situation that he doesn’t find the irony even remotely funny). One day, they’re going to get caught doing whatever illegal things Elektra’s gotten Matt into, and it’s not going to be _her_ who pays the price. No, it’s never people like Elektra, little miss diplomat’s daughter is going to skirt the surface and it’s Matt who’s going be sucked up right into the eye of that shitstorm. And Matt has worked so hard to be where he is now and it’s going to break Foggy’s heart watching him lose it all.

 

In the wake of everything, he still doesn’t expect the police to come knocking at their door.

Sunday, _late_ , and Foggy hasn’t heard from Matt, not a word to let him know he’s alive, since Friday morning. Foggy doesn’t worry. This is what Matt does, these days. He doesn’t worry. Still, Matt has never been gone this long – normally he turns up the next day, even if only to grab a change of clothes or sleep a few restless hours. But—is it so surprising that Elektra would keep him to herself for days? This is the natural progression of things.

It’s not worry, exactly, what makes Foggy jump to answer the knock on the door. His heart leaps in his chest – it’s stupid, why would Matt _knock_ – and drops to the floor when he comes face to face with two police officers.

“Matthew Murdock?” asks one of them, taller and with that sort of bland expression that could conceal anything. Foggy swallows the urge to clear his suddenly dry throat.

“Uh—no, he’s… I’m his roommate,” he manages to articulate, only slightly uneven.

The other officer, burly and compact, tries to take a peek inside their room, not bothering much to be covert about it.

“Well, is Matthew Murdock here?” his partner asks patiently.

“No, he’s out.” Foggy’s voice is no stronger than a whisper, his mind running a hundred scenarios simultaneously. What the fuck did Matt do, _where_ is he, can Foggy give him an alibi when he doesn’t even know what this is about? When—god, when he doesn’t know what Matt’s been doing for _months_?

“Can we come in,” Burly says, flat and not really a question. Foggy leans against the doorframe, blocking the entrance.

“I’m sorry, but—what is this concerning, again?” He stretches his lips wide. Burly scowls and grumbles something under his breath that sounds like _fucking fetus lawyer_. A warm surge of confidence flows up his spine, prompting him to straighten his back.

“We just want to ask him a few questions,” Officer Dull says neutrally. Foggy directs his focus on him.

“Is he in some kind of trouble?” he inquires, powerless to keep the slightest tremulous note from his voice.

The officer hesitates.

“No.” _Not yet._ “But we’d like him to clarify some things for us. Could start with where he was around 20 p.m. on Saturday.”

 _Great practice for the future, this is great practice for the future_ , Foggy repeats firmly in his head before he speaks.

“Well, he’s not here now. Look, if anything changes,” he says with a slightest shrug, thinking, _fuck you_ , “I know who to call, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Burly glowers at him.

“You could—”

“I’m sorry,” Foggy interrupts, flashing him what he hopes to god is his best people-pleasing smile. “I really can’t help you, officers. If you’d excuse me…” and with that he shuts the door in Burly and his partner’s face.

The momentary spurt of triumph is quickly squelched by a chanting _shitshitshit_ getting louder in his head. This is bad. He just all but told officers of the law to fuck off, and they’re looking for Matt, and Matt is missing—

Foggy dials Matt’s number and howls with frustration when it goes straight to voicemail.

“Matt, you better freaking start answering your phone. There are _police_ looking for you, two officers stopped by our room, asking about you, and I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you need to get your ass back here. Right now.” He takes a breath and tentatively adds, “I hope you’re okay, buddy.”

 

“I got your message,” is all Matt has to say when he finally turns up at the door on the Monday morning. Foggy pounces on him.

“Jesus, Matt, where have you been? What happened, are you okay?” Foggy pauses to take a breath and gets the first good look at him. Matt’s skin is so pale it’s almost gray, with dark shadows under shining, bloodshot eyes. He’s still wearing the clothes he took off in on Friday. Foggy’s eyes trail down to the fists clutched at his sides, the knuckles scabbed over; Foggy inhales sharply. “What happened, Matt?” he asks, softer.

“I talked to the police,” Matt says tonelessly, all his questions falling on deaf ears. Foggy gives him a cautious look.

“Yeah? What—what did they want with you?” he asks gingerly, not sure he wants to know the answer.

Matt raises his shoulder in a slightest shrug.

“They wanted to ask me a couple questions,” he says, flat, and doesn’t follow it with anything.

“What kind of questions?” Foggy pushes, grasping at the frayed edges of his patience.

“It’s not important. It was a—a misunderstanding.” It should sound like an excuse but it’s not even that; it’s not defensive, or cagey, or self-righteous, all the things Foggy would expect. Matt doesn’t even sound like he cares if it appeases him, just going through the motions. Well, Foggy’s not appeased at all.

“Not important? The police _literally knocked on our door_ , what on earth have you gotten yourself into, Matt?”

“I told you, it’s fine. It’s nothing,” he says, voice dead, dead, dead.

Foggy wishes he could just reach out into Matt’s head and pry loose the answers he so desperately needs. There’s no reasoning with this odd, hollowed out version of his friend; something _happened_ , and there’s so much to untangle, so many concerns rising in him, and it all comes down to one thing.

“Where have you been, Matt?”

“I had to think something over.” The moment the words are out of his mouth Matt suddenly looks exhausted, like the effort of saying them made all the restless hours etched into the deep bags under his eyes catch up to him. His knees give out under the weight of it and come down heavily on the bed.

“I had a really long day, Fog,” he sighs.

“It’s morning,” Foggy says sensibly. Matt turns his face at him and he looks just so _miserable_ that Foggy can’t bear to needle him. “Okay, buddy,” he concedes and sits down next to him. “We don’t have to do this right now.”

He touches Matt’s shoulder because he looks so pathetic that he can’t not, and Matt gives him a smallest nod, leaning into his touch, and it feels like a thank you. For a long while they sit in silence, Matt not-staring into space and Foggy rubbing a comforting circle on his back. Then:

“Elektra left,” Matt whispers.

Foggy’s stomach lurches, something cold setting in. He doesn’t know what to say, other than, “Oh, _Matt_.”

Matt turns around sharply and curls on his side on the bed with his back to the room.

“I’m tired,” he says, his voice muffled by the pillow. “I think I want to take a nap now.”

“Okay,” Foggy says, because there’s nothing else to say. “Okay. Get some rest, buddy.”

 

Matt stays in bed for days.

Foggy checks in on him between classes, brings him cafeteria food that’s left untouched on the nightstand, tries to fill the oppressive silence with idle chatter, things he read about that day and stupid gossip, that he forgets the moment it’s out of his mouth. Matt stays silent and stays in bed. The air in their room is always still and heavy now – it sticks to his feet, lodges in his throat. Foggy thinks about his cousin Denise, who sometimes would suddenly get very quiet and sad, and would lock herself in her bedroom for hours. He thinks about the closed door to her room and how when he was a child it filled him with inexplicable dread. He’s living in that room now. His aunt used to bring up pie and leave it next to the door. He doesn’t think this is something a pie could fix.

He tries to ask, at first. “What happened?” and “Why was the police looking for you?” and “What did you _do_ , Matt? Matt? Goddammit, you own me some explanation!” He shouts and pleads, and Matt just lies there like a dead person and doesn’t say anything. He stops asking after a while.

He doesn’t stop wondering, though. About Elektra, what they did together, if her father has pulled some strings to make it go away. What is it that has Matt killing himself over.

“Matt, come on, this is ridiculous, you can’t stay in bed forever,” he begs. “I thought Murdocks always get up, come _on_ …” He wants a reaction. He’d take anger, fuck, he’d cry tears of joy if he got some anger right now, but there’s nothing in Matt’s eyes and nothing on his dear face and it’s _awful_.

“Matt, I swear to god, if you don’t answer me in the next five second, I’ll call an ambulance on you, I’m not messing around,” he threatens.

That, at last, gets a reaction. Matt turns around, directing his vacant eyes at him. His left cheek is faintly pink, with the pillow seam imprinted on it.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t make me,” Foggy counters. “You can’t live like this, Matt. I know you’re upset, but you gotta pull yourself together. This? This isn’t healthy, pal.”

“Why do you care,” Matt huffs. He _huffs_ and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. “You never liked Elektra, you wanted this from the start—you…”

“Yeah, nice try, asshole,” Foggy bites back, matching spite for spite, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Matt hauls himself up on his elbows, stringed in the sheets like world’s most sinewy ham. His bedhead is spectacular; it would be funnier if Foggy didn’t want to cry a little.

“Why do you care?” Matt asks, this time just sounding confused. Foggy’s sigh catches in his throat.

“Because you’re my friend, dumbass,” he says softly. Matt’s eyebrows pull in a pained frown. “Now, get your ass out the bed, Murdock!” he orders jovially. “We’ve got exams and I haven’t seen you with a book since October.”

With a weak groan, Matt drops his head onto his knees, shaking slightly.

“Yeah, no, you’re doing the exams, Matt.” He pinches Matt’s chin and turns his face to him. “Hey. You’re doing the exams.”

“I, um—yeah,” Matt chokes out. “I’m, I’m doing the exams, Fog.”

Foggy lets go of his chin. suddenly realizing how awkward this situation is.

“Good,” he says; he feels a compulsion to wipe his palms on his jeans. “Get up, Matt.”

And he does.

 

Foggy loses a couple days in the whirlwind of pre-finals cramming frenzy. Matt’s there whenever Foggy raises his eyes from his book to look for the slope of that dark-haired head in the library. When Foggy’s ripped from sleep by a shrill 5 a.m. alarm and he drags himself up to get an early start on studying, he shoots a spare glance at Matt’s bed – but it’s always empty. He doesn’t _see_ Matt lying in bed, not since. Since that’s all he ever did. Now he’s always in the library or—elsewhere, back to studying like the devil, and it’s—good. Foggy studies too, it’s finals. Better this than those dark stretches of _nothing_. At least Matt leaves their room again.

There’s an all-night diner a walking distance from their dorm and that’s where he finds Matt in the wee hours of morning, holed in the far-end booth behind a wall of paper and electronics. Matt’s fingers are running ceaselessly over his refreshable braille display; Foggy takes a note of a half-drunk cup with dried coffee stains on the rim next to Matt’s elbow.

Foggy has to repeat his name twice to get Matt’s attention.

“Fuh—” Matt jerks up, blinking; his glasses are missing. “Foggy.” He frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re not the only one who frequents this place.” Matt sits there, blank. Foggy knocks on the cup lightly. “How many of these you’ve had already?”

Matt scrunches up his eyebrows.

“Uh, I’m not sure.”

Foggy bites down on a sigh.

“When was the last time you slept, Matt?”

“What?” Matt blinks slowly. “I don’t know. Tuesday, probably.” Foggy stares at him.

“It’s Friday.” Matt mumbles soundlessly.

“That—that can’t be right.” He grabs at his braille display. “Really? Huh.”

This time Foggy does sigh.

“Matt, you need to get some sleep. Take a nap break, at least.”

“I know. I will. Just ten more minutes,” Matt promises, nodding absently.

Foggy doesn’t stick around to make sure, but he suspects Matt takes more than ten minutes. But—it’s finals. They’re all allowed to act a little crazy. Matt more than anyone, with all that’s he’s missed. They’re gonna pass their exams and everything will go back to normal.

Foggy can’t fucking wait.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey. I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow,” Matt greets him when Foggy hobbles into their dorm room with a huge stuffed travelling bag in tow.

“Yeah, I decided to cut it a day short. Family was starting to drive me crazy,” Foggy says in between huffing and puffing, and finally comes to a stop at his bed. He kicks the bag, electing to deal with it not now. “Hi.”

“You can say you missed this,” Matt says with a lopsided smile.

“Yeah,” Foggy breathes. “So! Do anything fun during the break?”

Matt purses his lips consideringly, the way that makes him look even more of a handsome duck than usual.

“Nothing special.” His hands curl into fists in his sweater. “You?”

“Nothing special,” Foggy echoes. “Got caught up on what happened last on Candance merry train.” Matt bursts with laughter. “Mom says hi and remember to feed yourself, by the way.”

“I eat, Fog.” Foggy raises his hands palms up in a conceding gesture. “How _is_ your sister, anyway?” Matt asks, scrunching up his face.

“You… don’t wanna know.” Matt chuckles and shrugs. “Hey, wanna go grab a drink, maybe celebrate the beginning of a new semester?”

“You don’t want to start the new semester with a hangover,” Matt says, ever the stick-in-the-mud.

“And you’re right,” Foggy admits. “Okay, no drinks, just pizza and good company. You up for it?”

“Yeah, what the hell,” Matt says, smiling politely. Foggy pauses.

“…or we could stay in, order some takeout? I figure we’ll have enough crazy in the weeks to come.”

Matt’s smile brightens.

“That would be great, actually,” he says with relief. Foggy adds a point to his Good Bro scoreboard in his head. Not that he keeps one.

“Alright!” he exclaims, slapping his knees. “Lowkey celebratory evening with pizza is on! We’re off to a wild start, hopefully not representative of how the rest of the semester will go,” he says; but as he looks at Matt, settling more comfortably into his bed with a content smile, there’s nothing he’d rather do than this.

 

“Wake up, sleeping beauty, it’s time to face the day,” Foggy says cheerfully, nudging Matt’s slumped form. “Don’t wanna be late on the first day, do we?” Matt tightens his balled fingers in the tangled sheets; he’s awake, at least. “Come on, you had  _one_ beer, you can’t possibly plead hangover.” If he doesn’t get up soon, they’re really going to be late. “Matt?”

Now that he thinks about it, Foggy doesn’t remember Matt falling asleep last night. He usually drifts off before Foggy, with his weird holistic meditation exercises, and the sound of his measured breaths lulls Foggy into sleep. Yesterday, though, Foggy was out like a light, beat after scuffling with the suitcase and thoroughly shaken by the train ride, and this morning when he woke up Matt was already twisted into a pretzel that in hindsight was too taut for anyone to sleep in.

“Matt,” he says, more gentle. “What’s going on?”

He tugs lightly at the edge of the comforter. Matt recoils from the touch, groaning tiredly, “I can’t do this today, please, Foggy.”

 _Please_. Foggy swallows over a sudden lump in his throat.

“Okay,” he half-whispers. “I have to go now but—I’ll be back.”

And with that – despite the nagging doubt in his chest – Foggy leaves.

 

When he comes back hours later, it’s on the tips of his toes, feeling oddly like he’s interloping on something that should not be disturbed. The cloud of eerie dark quiet has once more descended onto their room; it snips at his ankles when he goes to sit gingerly on the edge of Matt’s bed.

His hand hovers in air for a moment before he lets it brush the huddled shape under the blanket, once, and curls his fist into himself.

“Hey, bud,” he says, tentative and gentle. “You feeling any better?”

Matt rolls over to his back, blinking up at him.

“Foggy,” he whispers, like he’s surprised. Like he’s surprised every time Foggy comes back. It’s mildly insulting; mostly, it’s just sad.

“Yeah,” he says, equally quiet. Hesitantly, he lets his hand fall down again. Matt closes his eyes briefly and exhales; after a beat Foggy recognizes it as content. He strokes up Matt’s side, whisper-light. “You wanna talk about this?”

Matt shakes his head forcefully and rolls so that his face is mushed against Foggy’s thigh. Foggy pauses; Matt presses his face more insistently into him, butts his forehead a little on the joint of his hip. After a beat Foggy resumes his stroking. He touches lightly the spot where Matt’s shoulder becomes his neck, allows himself to sink his fingers into Matt’s hair. It’s slick, a little greasy now, but it’s just as soft as it looks. Foggy tries to smooth it out, comb out a knot tangled in the back of his head. Matt breathes against him, warm and faintly humid on his skin even through the thick material of his jeans. Matt’s breathing, heavier than normal, slowly evens out; so quiet now Foggy thinks for a second he might have fallen asleep. But no, Matt’s shoulders are locked and his mouth is closed; he’s awake.

“She’s really gone,” Matt whispers. Foggy’s fingers stutter in his hair.

“Who?” Foggy asks, even though he doesn’t need to. There’s only one “she” who’s been for Matt in a long time.

He brushes the floppy strands from Matt’s forehead reassuringly when there’s no answer. Matt is silent for a moment.

“I looked for her,” he says instead. “During the break.” _Oh, no_. “But I couldn’t… It’s like all trace of her disappeared into thin air.”

“Have you considered that maybe she doesn’t want to be found,” Foggy says cautiously. Matt tightens his fist in the sheets and shakes his head. It doesn’t feel like denial, it’s just frustrated and desperate. Foggy helplessly strokes his hair.

Then Matt pushes himself up abruptly on the bed. Foggy takes his hand back, the moment over. But Matt grabs a handful of Foggy’s shirt on his chest and tries to meet his eyes, best he can. His empty gaze slopes somewhat to Foggy’s chin.

“Foggy…” He wets his lips tentatively and then his face softens, infinitely gentle. “I don’t know why you do this, but…”

“Hey, no,” Foggy interjects, his hands moving independently from his brain and finding Matt’s sides to latch on. “You know why, I care about you, I want you to be okay, Matt…”

For one second of pure horror, it looks like Matt’s face might shatter. But then his mouth sets and his eyes steel, all guards reassembling themselves, and it only looks a little unsteady. Matt drops his head, hides it in the crook of Foggy’s shoulder.

This… this is not normal, Foggy’s dimly aware, when his fingers find their way into Matt’s mussed hair again and Matt makes a soft stifled sound in the back of his throat. His hand keeps moving on its own.

“Foggy…” Matt mumbles, a mist of hot breath on his bare skin. Foggy shivers, the hair on his neck electric. “Foggy, Foggy, you’re the only one I have now.”

He desperately wants to say that it’s not true, but it _is_ , and his heart is aching in his chest for Matt. He can only pull Matt closer to him, pet his dirty hair and whisper, “I got you, buddy. I’m not going anywhere. I got you.”

Matt climbs into his lap, clumsy and frantic, like he wants to crawl under his skin. His sweaty hand slips on Foggy’s chest, landing high on his thigh.

“ _Oh_ ,” Foggy breathes.

At that Matt’s hand tightens. He brushes his thumb on the inseam of his jeans, rubs his nose slightly on his neck just under his ear. Matt’s body is a wall of fire against his.

Foggy bites his lip, hard, and tries to gently push him away.

“Matt, buddy, if you don’t stop, this is gonna get real awkward for both of us real fast,” he laughs nervously. His neck is hot, his dick is hot. His best friend is almost crying in his lap and he’s getting turned on; he’s an awful, awful person.

Matt doesn’t let himself be pushed away. He pushes back, molds himself into the shape of Foggy’s body; his hand skims dangerously close to Foggy’s dick. Foggy swallows a choked noise that threatens to tear itself from his throat. This is not right; _this is not right_ , he reminds himself when Matt’s chapped lips graze his burning skin.

“Matt,” he says, and it’s not urgent enough, his voice is barely more than a gasp of breath. “Matt, what are you doing…”

The touch of Matt’s chapped mouth returns to his neck, not just a brush by mistake.

“I know you want me,” Matt mumbles into his skin. “When we met, I thought it was just a, a superficial attraction, or, later, maybe a crush you’d grow out of, but you still want me, _Fo_ ggy, don’t you?”

The gut-punch of embarrassment, this is something he’ll deal with later; Foggy carefully boxes it in, shoves it to the far back of his head.

“We don’t, we don’t have to…” He doesn’t know what to say. God, how can he can say it.

“I can feel you looking, sometimes,” Matt says, like he’s sharing a secret. “Thinking about—about it, about me. Your breathing changes, you…” He wets his lips. “You think I don’t notice but I _do_. I do.”

This—this is something more than embarrassment, this is fire-on-his-skin, ice-in-his-veins mortification. His fingers itch to scratch himself out of existence. He wants to never look at Matt’s face again.

Matt’s face, that still makes something tighten in his chest, that now is creased with a frown.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Matt soothes him, nuzzles his jaw, god, they’re doing it all backwards, “I don’t mind you looking, I… I like it,” he says, licks his worried mouth. “I like knowing you want me.”

It hurts to squeeze his voice through his throat.

“That’s—” _alarming, head-spinning, w r o n g_ , “that—we _can’t_.”

“Why can’t we?” It’s challenging, and the corner of Matt’s mouth curls up slightly, and it makes this so much harder.

“You don’t want me like this,” Foggy whispers.

Matt leans in and nibbles on the soft skin beneath his earlobe.

“Please,” he breathes. “Foggy, _please_.”

It’s wet and the farthest thing from sensual, Matt’s face feels tacky and his hands are cold and damp, and he hasn’t changed his clothes since last night, the same clothes he lied the day away in, and he smells like misery and sweat.

Foggy has never wanted anyone so much in his life.

“Matt,” he protests and hates how weak his voice sounds. “Matt, this is crazy.”

He tries to hold on to all the reasons why this is wrong, he _knows_ this, but Matt’s lips are so gentle and his body is so warm, and it’s like trying to hold sand in his cupped hands.

“You’re straight, Matt. You’re Catholic, you…” he grasps at arguments, rapidly fleeing him in the wake of the torturous hand rubbing insistently at the inside of his thigh, and clutches them like a lifeline – he’s good at that, he’s good at arguing. “I don’t want to sleep with you if you’re going to run to your priest for penance afterwards.”

“I’m not going to run to my priest afterwards,” Matt snorts, momentarily distracted from nipping at his neck.

“Maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll just bottle it up until you choke on guilt.” Foggy smooths down the frown between Matt’s eyebrows with his finger. “I know you. I don’t want to be the reason why you’ll go to hell. Or—think that you will.”

“It’s not going to be the reason I’ll go to hell,” Matt tells him unwaveringly and something about it tugs at him, in a wrong way.

“Matt, come on,” he says weakly. “Have you even… you know. Did it with a guy before?”

Matt’s unseeing eyes glare an inch to the left of his mouth defiantly.

“Have _you_?”

“I have… experience.” A few hand jobs and one clumsy blowie but Matt doesn’t have to know that.

“I thought you’re supposed to experiment in college,” Matt says. It’s meant to be teasing, Foggy thinks, but he sounds more like he does during their mock-trials, sardonic and razor-sharp; Foggy has a lot of to say to that. Like that it doesn’t feel like experimenting, it feels like Matt is trying to exorcize something, and he has a pretty good idea what that something is. But before he can voice any of that, Matt slips like water in his arms and slides to the floor and his hot breath ghosts over the front of his pants and _god_ —

Foggy really doesn’t want to be a better person.

Matt nuzzles his crotch with his nose, grips at the zipper; Foggy encircles his wrists gently, tugging him up.

“Come ‘ere,” he whispers, even as he does it not sure what he means to do, when Matt surges forward and presses his lips urgently against his, and before he realizes, Foggy’s kissing him back.

Matt makes a noise that’s muffled against his mouth and crushes their lips more firmly. He stays kneeling on the floor, his arms trapped between them still enclosed in Foggy’s hold, and cranes his chin up, kissing him desperately like he needs this more than breathing. Foggy’s head is spinning. Matt bites a little at his lower lip, and teases his mouth open, licking inside demandingly. His mouth tastes like stale cotton but Foggy doesn’t care because it’s _Matt’s_ perfect mouth he’s kissing, and Matt’s making these little, perfect whining noises in his throat and Foggy feels like he’s high. Except no high has felt as good as this.

He grabs Matt by his elbows and pulls him up, and Matt goes willingly, his surprisingly strong thighs wrapping on either side of his hips. He keeps forgetting why it is a bad idea to let Matt’s cold, clammy hands slip underneath his shirt, exploring. He wants to let him; he wants Matt to touch him _everywhere_. He wants to drag Matt’s disgusting sweatpants down and peel off his disgusting underwear he hasn’t changed since yesterday, and kiss his dick that’s probably as ridiculously pretty as the rest of Matt. This thought brings a new rush of blood down to his dick and somehow it’s what snaps him out of his lust-clouded frenzy. He pushes Matt away, gently but firmly and catches his writs again, untangling Matt’s hands from him. Matt tries to follow his lips, but he turns his face away.

“Matt, no,” he says, trying very hard not to be derailed by how stupidly kiss-swollen Matt’s lips already are. “This is a monumentally stupid idea. You need to clear your head and shower because no offence, but you’re sort of gross right now.” It’s pathetic how Foggy doesn’t really mind but it’s a good enough excuse. Matt’s face clouds over but he lets Foggy maneuver him off his lap. It helps with the thinking, marginally.

“Fine,” Matt huffs sulkily. It shouldn’t be attractive, the way he acts like a bullheaded eight-year-old; it’s not, really, but Foggy’s just so far gone for this boy. God, he’s so fucked.

At least Matt is standing up and gathering his shower things without a further protest. Foggy swallows a sigh of relief.

When Matt leaves the room, Foggy allows himself to flap to the floor.

“Jesus,” he hisses and rubs his eyes. What just happened. He sits on the floor for a moment, not knowing quite what to do with himself, before he picks himself up and gets ready for bed.

He’s about to slide under his covers and pretend to be asleep when Matt comes back. He shakes his hair, wet from the shower, and drops his things unceremoniously on his bed, before he turns to Foggy, his eyes clear and shining in a way that’s just a notch terrifying.

“Matt?” Foggy says cautiously.

“I took a shower,” Matt murmurs, climbing into Foggy’s lap and trying to kiss him with devastating single-minded focus.

“That’s…” It’s increasingly hard to think, with Matt’s mouth leaving a trail of hot wet kisses along the line of his jaw. “That’s not what I meant,” he gets out; his hands curl around Matt’s waist on their own volition, undermining his words. He struggles against it. “Matt, Matt, this is a bad idea.”

In Foggy’s world, a cold shower would snap Matt out of his temporary insanity. He’d get tight-lipped and refuse to acknowledge that this night ever happened, and it would be awkward and Foggy would stew in blackest despair for a while, and things would go back to normal. He feels like he’s slipped into alternate reality.

Matt squirms in his lap, which does terrible and wonderful things for Foggy’s rapidly stirring dick, and turns his ministrations to the soft flesh under his ear. Foggy shudders.

“Tell me what you want,” Matt whispers into his skin. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it, Fog…”

Foggy can only groan.

Matt’s hand finds his dick again and grinds down, the pressure heavenly even through the material of his pants; Foggy is going _straight to hell_.

“Fuck, fuck it,” he gasps out and pushes Matt out of his lap. Matt makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat until he realizes that Foggy’s trying to shove off his pajama pants, and scrambles to help him. Foggy raises his hips so Matt can drag his pants down to his ankles. The cold air hitting his dick makes his balls tighten so much it hurts.

Matt slides down to his knees.

“Oh, sweet Jesus in heaven,” Foggy chokes.

Matt wraps his hand around the base of his cock and slowly strokes up, thumbing at the head on the upstroke. Foggy’s hips buck and the tip of his dick accidently brushes Matt’s chin. Matt jerks, surprised, and then seems to consider it. He continues to stroke him, maddeningly slow, tightening his hand just enough for it to be delicious torture, and he ducks his head, closing his mouth tentatively just at the tip of his cock.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Foggy hisses. Matt hums, he _hums_ , in reproach or in acknowledgement, and slurps a little. Like he’s sucking on a candy. Matt’s going to give him a heart attack. Foggy’s gonna die of heart attack having his dick sucked and he’s going to love every second of it.

“God, Matt, come on, I need…” he mumbles nonsensically and Matt gets the hint, slides an inch down his dick, still slow and tentative. His pretty pink lips are impossibly soft and wet, wrapped carefully around his dick.

“Fuck, Matty, do you have any idea how you look right now.”

Matt pulls back and licks a small stroke on the underside of his dick.

“Call me Matty again,” he whispers, his lips brushing him lightly, and _fuck_ if this isn’t the hottest thing Foggy’s ever heard. “And _tell_ _me_.”

“Matty, Matty, god, you look so good,” Foggy babbles instantly. Matt hums again, his lips infuriatingly light against him, and then takes him into his mouth again, more confidently this time. “Your lips are so pink, it’s ridiculous, and they look so good on my dick, like they’re meant to be here.” Matt makes a strangled sound around his cock and slides further down. “You look so pretty on your knees like this, your face flushed and your mouth stretched, and _fuck_ , you feel amazing, all hot and wet, fuck, fuck, don’t stop.” Matt groans softly in his throat, the sound vibrating through his dick, and slides an inch lower. It takes all of Foggy’s self-restraint not to push into the heat of his mouth.

Matt hollows his cheeks, slides a little further, and then pulls off with an obscene wet pop.

“Grab my hair,” he mumbles, his eyes trying to find Foggy’s in vain. “Just, pull on it, twist it, _something_ —” Foggy immediately curls his hand into longer hair on the base of Matt’s skull and fists it firmly. Matt lets out a thick exhale and gets his mouth back on his dick.

Foggy tugs his hair a little experimentally; Matt whines around his cock, garbled, and Foggy does it again, watching him transfixed. Matt’s free hand grabs at his hip and squeezes. In response Foggy tightens his hand in his hair and pulls on it for real. Matt exhales deeply through his nose, his jaw adjusting, and slides down on his dick, as far as he can fit in his mouth. Foggy tangles his other hand in the sheets, grateful for Matt’s tight hold on his hips. He wants to push back so bad and he settles for twisting his fingers in Matt’s hair, a little too forcefully.

His dick slips from Matt’s mouth as he gasps. His hot breath is the best kind of torture on Foggy’s wet skin. His entire body is itching.

“Matty, Matty, I think I’m gonna,” he gasps, not knowing what he’s saying, but the moment the words are out of his mouth he knows they’re true. It’s too much, Matt so pretty and pliant on his knees, his soft lips and the feeling of wet, slick hair under his touch. He can’t keep it in any longer.

Matt leans his cheek against the inside of his thigh, nips at the head of his cock. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he mouths against him and it’s enough, Foggy’s _gone_.

Through a haze of pleasure, he registers Matt’s surprised yelp when his dick twitches and slips from his grip, his come splashing a little on Matt’s chin. Fuck, that’s hot, and he’s hit with another wave of lust that crosses a little the threshold between pleasure and pain. He flops backward on the bed, spent.

He listens to Matt raising to his feet, grabbing something and wiping his chin. Fuck, he’s just come on Matt’s _face_ ; his dick makes a little halfhearted jerk, aching. _Calm down_ , Foggy tells it half-heartedly. It feels like he’s floating on cotton-candy clouds.

Matt comes back; he pushes Foggy a little to scoot over. Foggy shimmies closer to the wall and Matt climbs into the bed next to him, resting his head on Foggy’s shoulder. He wills himself to cut through his post-coital haze and rolls onto his side, hand searching for Matt’s dick.

“Do you want me to…”

He stops, ice freezing his veins. Matt’s not even hard.

“Don’t worry about it,” Matt murmurs.

“What do you mean,” he starts. “Matt.”

Matt’s face pinches unhappily.

“It’s fine, it’s not. It’s not about that. I don’t need to get off every time to enjoy sex.” Foggy sits up.

“No, I’m familiar with the concept but…” A chilling thought occurs to him that punches all the air from his chest. “Are you… Are you even attracted to me? Or was it all just, what, some horrible exercise in self-punishment, in which case, fuck you, Matt, for using me for this—”

“I’m attracted to you,” Matt says and it’s annoyed, self-righteous, not at all like anyone should ever sound in bed. “It’s not… I told you, it’s not about that.”

Foggy doesn’t know what else to say. There’s a terrifying certainty solidifying in his chest that he’s just done something unforgivable. He thinks, distantly, that he should probably kick Matt out of his bed and maybe drag him to the student’s counselor by his hair right this instant. But his body is warm next to Foggy, and the sated feeling hasn’t yet left his heavy limbs, and he looks at Matt’s face, pained and pleading, and he can’t bring himself to move. Foggy swallows, swallows down a sudden and sharp _god, I hate myself_ , and tentatively lays back down. Matt immediately wraps his arms around him, which feels so _nice_ that it just makes him feel terrible. There’s a paradox in that, one that he doesn’t feel strong enough to try to untangle. Matt presses closer to him, tightens his arms.

“Thank you,” he whispers into his cheek; there’s a sudden jab of pain in Foggy’s chest.

Matt burrows more comfortably into him, swings one leg over his, and sighs contentedly. His cold nose nuzzles close, his wet hair tickling and smelling faintly of grapes; Foggy thinks about hell and lets himself have this.

 

* * *

 

In the deepest parts of him, where his ugliest and most selfish thoughts lie, Foggy can admit to himself what he wants – he wants Matt. Like he was before, he wants (these last few months to never have happened) his Matt back, without the broken cracks through which Elektra poured this oozing darkness inside him. He wants – foolishly, _selfishly_ – to fix Matt.

And the funny thing is—the funny thing is, he gets his wish, in part. Matt gets up in the morning and attends his classes like he used to, and when he smiles it’s _his_ Matt, not that crazy grin of a stranger. Matt’s there again and he’s _fine_ , and he’s so much like the Matt from before and he—

He can’t keep his hands off Foggy.

“Foggy, Foggy, Foggy,” he’s mumbling into his jeans; Matt pushed him against the door and dropped to his knees the moment they stepped inside their room, so fast that Foggy’s head is spinning with vertigo.

“Matt,” Foggy says, and it starts as a protest, he thinks, except when Matt opens his mouth, sucking over his dick through his jeans, Foggy lets out an extended groan and his hips shoot up from the door.

Matt smiles against him, and leans back on his heels, reaching for the zipper. Foggy’s hands scramble to help him, his brain left somewhere back in the hallway, and Matt laughs, slapping them away.

“Stop getting in my way,” he admonishes, amused, and it sounds so _ordinary_ , like so many times they bantered before, and somehow that turns him on even more.

“Matt, come on,” he groans.

“Patience,” Matt tsks but he sounds pleased.

Finally Matt gets his zipper open and drags his pants down his thighs. Foggy’s fingers already know to tangle in Matt’s hair, stroking through their silky softness. Matt hums contently and then puts his wet, hot lips on his dick through the flimsy material of his boxers. Foggy snaps his hips against Matt’s face without a conscious thought.

“Shit, sorry,” he hisses. Matt just laughs and noses against his dick.

“It’s okay,” he says, his breath sending sparks of pleasure down Foggy’s spine. “You can push back, I don’t mind.”

“Shit,” Foggy curses again.

Matt sucks a little on the tip of his cock through the fabric, over the wet spot already forming there from precum. Then he scrunches up his nose and pulls back, hooking his fingers in the band of his boxers. He shoves them off deftly, pulls them down Foggy’s thighs, and closes his firm hand over the base of his dick.

This time he’s less tentative about it; he takes Foggy into his mouth and slides down the length of his dick in one smooth motion. He pulls back, nibbles a little at the head, his thumb stroking, and does it all over again.

Foggy writhes under him for a moment and then he’s pushing him off.

“Fuck, fuck, Matty, come here, I want to get you naked this time,” he gasps frantically.

Matt groans and lets himself be yanked up. Foggy slips his hands under Matt’s too thick sweater, desperately searching for skin. Matt’s smooth and hard against his touch and he’s the most perfect thing Foggy’s ever put his hands on. He wants to cry, a little.

“Come on, get this off,” he whispers hotly. Matt obediently raises his arms and lets him pull both his sweater and undershirt over his head. Foggy lets his hands roam over the plane of his chest, mapping the ups and dips of the muscle.

“God, Matt, you’re so beautiful.”

Matt reddens at that, a sprinkle of color across the bridge of his nose and high on his cheeks. Foggy traces the line of Matt’s cheekbones and Matt rubs his face against his hand like a kitten. Sexy, blind kitten. He kisses Foggy, almost chastely, but there’s nothing innocent in the way his hands reach for his zipper. He shoves down his jeans along with his underwear, completely shameless, bends down to unlace his shoes and slip off his socks, and steps out of his clothes. He gives Foggy’s still clothed dick a little kiss on his way up, making it twitch and fill up, and then stands smiling expectantly.

“Fuck,” Foggy swears softly. He shakes his head. “Okay, bed,” he makes an executive decision. “I want to get my hands on you.”

Matt’s hands close over his own on Matt’s hips, and he guides Foggy backwards to his bed. The backs of his knees hit the bedframe and he falls on his back, his arms thrown over his head. He kind of looks like a picture from a catalogue.

“God, I knew even your dick would be pretty. I’d be mad except I’m the one who gets to touch it.”

“Then _touch it_ already,” Matt bites back, a challenge in the line of his mouth, one that Foggy’s all too happy to raise to.

 

“You know, I kind of think we should talk more about this,” Foggy says when they both lie after on the rumpled and rapidly growing disgusting sheets.

Matt sits up, tugging on his jeans.

“Talk about what?” he asks, his voice muffled when he bends down. Foggy frowns at him.

“This!” He gestures vaguely between them. “I just gestured vaguely between the two of us,” he informs Matt and sighs. “Okay, hand me some pants, this is not a conversation I want to have naked.”

“Oh, are having a conversation?” Matt says mildly. Foggy makes an impatient hand grab.

“Matt, pants.” Matt rolls his eyes but obliges.

“I wasn’t aware there was something to have a conversation about,” he says as Foggy pulls up his pants.

“ _Uh_ , yeah, there’s plenty.” He smacks his lips trepidatiously. “Matt, seriously, all this is coming out of the left field. Actually, no, you suddenly discovering a burning passion for sword swallowing and joining the circus would be out of the left field, this is so hilariously beyond that that we’re not even _on_ the field anymore.”

“You’re being a little dramatic here, Fog,” Matt says, with a mildly exasperated snort.

“Up until Tuesday, I was sure you didn’t even like men.”

“I like you,” Matt offers with a smile that’s equal parts endearing and maddening.

“ _So_ not the point,” Foggy tells him. “But even if buy that you’re okay with suddenly being gay or whatever, and not having a Catholic freak out in your head, and that you now just realized you’ve got hots for me…” He bites his lip. “I… I _like_ you, Matt, a lot, and you’re my best friend and I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t think I can do casual sex, not with you, and if it’s going to be a problem then I—”

“It’s not, it’s not casual,” Matt interjects, reaching out to touch his jaw gently. “There’s nothing casual about this, Foggy.”

Foggy exhales heavily.

“Okay, it’s, it’s good. Nice to know that you return the sentiment. But this doesn’t actually fill me with confidence. Matt,” he starts, gentle but firm. “You just got out of a crazy serious relationship that fucked you up a lot and…” Matt to his feet, pacing angrily.

“This has nothing to do with that,” he barks. Foggy’s eyebrows pull together.

“Matt…”

“No, this has nothing to do with… with her, I…” Matt stumbles.

“You can barely say her name,” Foggy says gently. “I think it has a lot to do with her.”

“Elektra!” Matt snaps. “It has nothing to do with Elektra, okay!”

“Well, then you have a hell of a timing,” Foggy says pointedly.

Matt’s lips flatten in a bitter grimace.

“If you don’t want me, just say it.” Foggy sighs.

“You know it’s not about that.” Matt stands there with his hands fidgeting at his sides, fight in every line of his body. “Matt.” He tugs on his arm until Matt reluctantly sits down next to him. He brushes Matt’s hair from his forehead, watching him inhale sharply. “You know it’s because I care about you, right? I worry.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Matt mumbles, averting his gaze, but still pushes a little into his hand. “I’m fine. And I moved on.”

Foggy laughs quietly, stroking down the line of Matt’s face.

“Well, now I know that’s a bold-faced lie.” Matt huffs but he doesn’t let him get away. “Let’s, let’s just try to do things slow, okay? See where it leads us.”

 

* * *

 

“One of these days,” Foggy says when he finally gets his breath back, “I’m going to get you out of this room yet.” Matt hums against his skin noncommittally. “We’ll do this right. Dinner, no takeout, a tasteful, chaste conversation. You don’t believe me?” Matt smiles coyly and doesn’t say anything. “Eh, probably for the best. I don’t think I’m ever getting out of this bed.”

“Works for me.” Foggy jabs an accusing finger at him.

“That, my friend, is because you are a terrible enabler.” Matt snips at his finger and grins when Foggy swats his cheek in reprimand. “Terrible,” Foggy restates. “You’re an awful influence on me.”

“Uh, you weren’t protesting much in the proceedings, so,” Matt screws up his face, putting on his mock-serious voice.

“Maybe I’m terrible too.” Foggy yawns. “And I’m getting kinda gross.”

Matt stretches out like a cat and gets up. A moment later Foggy gets a pack of wet wipes thrown in his face.

“ _Nice_.” Matt flips him off, pulling on his underwear with one hand, and grabs a hoodie from a growing pile of clothes on the floor. Foggy squints at him when Matt’s tousle-haired head reemerges from it.

“Is that my hoodie?” he asks suspiciously. Matt wraps his arms around himself in a protective gesture.

It _is_ his hoodie; his favorite hoodie, in fact, with the washed out Red Sox logo, the softest thing he owns. There are memories tied up in this hoodie, sultry summers spent at grandparents’ and his sister’s dirty hands full of grass rubbing faded stains into it gleefully – plus, it’s damn comfortable. He wants to say that. He opens his mouth and looks at Matt, burrowed in too-big material like in a blanket, and changes his mind.

“Hmpf, it looks better on you anyway.” He’s rewarded by the relaxing slope of Matt’s shoulders.

“I’m gonna have to take your word on that,” he says with a crooked smile, and crawls back into bed with him. Foggy shifts and raises his arm for Matt to duck under. He slips his fingers into his hair; Matt rubs his cheek on his chest in response.

“This is not taking things slow,” Foggy sighs. He feels Matt stiffening under his touch. “I’m not saying anything,” he capitulates, stroking Matt’s hair conciliatorily until he relaxes again. He knows it’s more than he ever had the right to wish for. This is a blessing and it can be whatever Matt wants it to, and it’s more than enough.

 

* * *

 

It’s great. Matt is great and Foggy gets to have him for himself, and it’s great. Everything is great. He just doesn’t know why he feels like there’s something under his skin, bubbling, like he’s a pressurized container that’s about to snap. But it’s great; it’s great, until one day he goes back to the dorm after a trying day and Matt immediately gives him a coy smile and pulls him close by the belt loops and Foggy snaps.

“Do you ever do anything other than sex anymore?” he barks, prissy. Matt slowly lowers his hands and frowns at him.

“What’s your problem?”

It is exactly the worst thing to say right now; Matt’s self-righteous tone, the flat displeased line of his mouth, it strikes all the wrong chords in Foggy.

“Think very hard about it, buddy,” he huffs, sidestepping Matt, intending to crash on his bed. But Matt doesn’t let him, gets in his way, everything always on Matt’s terms and it’s _infuriating_.

“I’m not interested in playing games, Foggy,” Matt says, putting his hands on his hips. His debate posture, or his “I’m right and you’re not” posture. It always seemed so attractive to Foggy, but right now he can’t remember why.

“Yeah, well, neither am I. And here we are.”

He can almost see the hackles raise on the back of Matt’s neck.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Foggy purses his lips. He’s exhausted, this is exhausting, he just wants to crawl into bed and sleep or maybe cry for ten hours.

“I don’t want to do this with you right now.”

Matt raises his eyebrows, face expectant. He’s not wearing his glasses; like that, he looks exposed, cut wide open, but he can use it to his advantage. There’s no escaping his naked stare.

“You started it,” he says, meaningful.

Who started it, who finished, every little word held up like a piece of evidence, and it’s so petty and so childish and they can go on like that forever, and he’s _tired_ and he doesn’t want to be the bigger person this time.

“Fine!” Foggy snaps. Fine. If that’s what he wants. Matt always gets what he wants. “You said this isn’t casual.”

It comes out more of an accusation than he’d like but it’s there, in the open. For a moment Matt looks thrown.

“I-it’s not.”

“Well, you say that,” Foggy says dully. “You said a lot of things, and all of them kinda feel now like manipulative bullshit you fed me just so I’d do what you want.”

Matt gets a little choked up with indignation.

“What _I_ want? As I recall, you were there all along, enthusiastically participating.” It feels like a slap to the face and he’ll be damned if he won’t give as good as he gets.

“Yeah, because I thought this is not where it would end. This is not what I signed up for.” Matt snorts derisively and Foggy narrows his eyes at him, spiteful. “You wanna have your fucked-up rebound hookup, fine by me, but don’t drag me into your mess, Murdock.”

Matt laughs, an ugly and mean sound.

“That—that’s rich. Like you weren’t on board with my ‘fucked-up rebound hookup’ the moment I dropped to my knees.”

The bottom of his stomach plummets, sickening. Foggy has a sudden urge to hit him.

“I bet you feel _so_ clever. First person who ever did that to get what they want. Is that how you solve your problems? On your knees?” Foggy doesn’t know where this is coming from. It doesn’t sound like his own voice. Matt flinches back with a sharp inhale. Foggy wants to hurt him, cut him deep. “Or did you learn it at Elektra’s feet?”

“Don’t talk about her!” Matt’s eyes are wild, rolling around uselessly, his mouth all twisted in a snarl. “Don’t you—you don’t have the right to talk about her like this, you…”

“I’ll talk about her however I like,” Foggy snaps back. “I think I’ve earned that by now. I put up enough with her ghost.”

Matt’s face goes deadly pale.

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong about her.” He steels his jaw and his eyes go cold. “And it’s not my fault you’re so insecure about yourself.”

An incredulous high-pitched laugh tears out of his throat.

“This is _so_ not about that.”

“Isn’t it?” Matt’s voice has gotten low, dangerous. “Isn’t it about you not being able to cope with the fact that I might actually want you back? Do you want me to ease your inferiority complex?” he says sweetly. “Say how much I want you and only you?”

He does shove Matt then.

“Shut up,” he says, shaking. “Shut up.”

Matt tips his chin up with an unrepentant scowl.

“It sucks having your shit thrown back in your face, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t believe you,” Foggy says. “You’re such an asshole, Matt. Everything is always about you, isn’t it? My self-esteem, even my bad mood, everything always has to be about you.”

“You said that,” Matt says immediately. “You said that—I never…”

“You don’t even see this, do you?” Foggy asks, and laughs, helpless and bitter. “For once I want to say how _I_ feel and we still end up having a discussion about Matt Murdock!”

Matt moves his mouth voicelessly.

“Yeah,” Foggy chuckles darkly, and turns to leave but Matt grabs his arm, never stops pushing.

“No, you—you wanted to say how you really feel about me.” He works his jaw. “So say it.”

“Why? So you can make it about yourself again, use my feelings to self-flagellate like you always do?” He shakes his head. “You know, sometimes I think you get off on this.” Matt startles badly, his mouth falls a little open. “Get off on feeling guilty, on feeling low.” He takes a step forward, feeling like they’re on a highway with the brakes broken but for once he’s behind the steering wheel. “Is that what you want? You want me to drag you down, you want me to be _mean_?”

Matt works his throat; Foggy doesn’t miss how his cheeks flood with color.

“I—that’s not…”

“You want me to hurt you, Matt?” he asks. Matt jerks like he really was struck. “Is that what this is about? This is why you always push? You want me to push back?”

“Foggy,” Matt’s breathless and faint.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he says bitterly. “Fine, let’s go.”

He shoves on Matt’s shoulders; his knees hit the floor hard. Foggy grabs a fistful of his hair without a care for being delicate and Matt growls low in his throat, grips at Foggy’s belt for leverage. His hand, separate from his brain, slaps Matt on the face. Matt recoils, jaw hanging slack.

“Is that how she did it?” It comes out of his mouth on its own, something dark and strange oozing out of him.

“No, don’t, don’t talk about her,” Matt mutters, his eyes glassy and running wild.

“Shut up,” Foggy barks and hits him again. Matt gasps, and he’s shaking, and hard. He’s been hard even before he went to the floor.

“Jesus, Matt,” he inhales sharply. “That’s messed up.”

It tears a weak moan from Matt’s lips, which—fuck.

Foggy’s not equipped to deal with this.

“Stop, stop, no,” he says, takes a step away, shaking his head. “This is—I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

Matt’s on his knees, his mouth slightly agape and his cheek pink. Then he blinks and gets up.

“I—uh.” He swallows and averts his face, blinking furiously. “I’m—sorry. Sorry. God.”

Foggy takes a deep breath and exhales heavily.

“I’m—I need sleep. I can’t think straight.”

Matt gulps, bobs his head.

“Yeah, I—sorry,” he mumbles, and before Foggy can say anything else, he dashes out the door.

 

* * *

 

Foggy lasts a week.

“Look, I really think we should talk about that thing we’re not talking about,” he says.

Matt stills and says way too casually, “Which is?”

And that is the million dollars question. There’s so many things they don’t talk about anymore.

“What happened last week,” he clarifies; he can deal with only so much.

Matt pouts mulishly. Foggy sighs.

“Okay, I’ll start. I was tired, we both said some things we didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t you?” Matt challenges. “Mean it.” His chin sets, daring.

“I…” He doesn’t know. He doesn’t _want_ to be that person. “No,” he says decisively. “No, I didn’t. Not like that.”

Matt’s jaw eases.

“Yeah, okay,” he breathes. “I… same for me.”

Foggy swallows the growing lump in his throat. Some day it’s gonna grow too big for him to swallow it down.

“So—” Matt cuts off and inhales sharply. “We’re, we’re fine, right?”

“We’re fine,” Foggy echoes. Matt licks his lips.

“Look, I still think we should maybe talk—”

“Do you want to fuck me?” Matt interrupts.

Foggy thinks all his mental functions shut down for a second there.

“What?”

“Do. You. Want. To. Fuck me,” Matt repeats calmly and gives him a coy smile.

“I… what kind of… I’m trying to talk to you here,” Foggy says weakly. Matt’s face instantly closes off.

“I’d rather do something else than talking.” He angles his face down and inserts himself more firmly into Foggy’s space.

Foggy throws up his arms.

“This is exactly the problem!” Matt grimaces unhappily.

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

“Uh—no, we just barked at each other and didn’t actually get anything resolved…”

“We go out,” Matt says defensively. “We went on a date just yesterday, isn’t it what that was about?”

“I—” They did have a date, which was watching Netflix curled up in bed with takeout, afterwards which Matt gave him a blowjob. Foggy doesn’t know how to voice what his problem is. “Yes, but—”

“There you go,” Matt says, like just made a winning argument. “So can you just please _fuck me_?”

This is a bad idea. Oh, this is a _bad_ idea but he’s tired of fighting Matt. He wants to feel good instead.

“This conversation is tabled, not finished,” he says and it feels like defeat.

“Yeah, sure,” Matt gasps against his neck. It’s not an agreement, not really, and if Foggy was a better person he’d push for it. But Matt’s hands sliding into his jeans feel so nice, and he wants more of that touch, wants to climb inside Matt’s body until every cruel word and petty fight gets lost in the sensation of Matt’s slick skin on his.

“Come on.”

He pushes Matt down on the bed, spreading his palm over Matt’s chest.

“You’re wearing way too many clothes, buddy,” he comments, stroking his hand down the material.

Matt laughs and sits back up, fingers curling under the hem of his shirt.

“Let’s remedy that.”

Foggy pushes him back to the mattress.

“No.” Matt still, his tongue darting to wet his mouth. “No, I do that.”

“O-okay,” Matt says, a little hoarse. Foggy’s dick rises in interest.

He pulls Matt’s sweatshirt along with the undershirt over his head, Matt shimming on the bed to help him, then he slides to the floor to unlace his right shoe and the other. Matt lays still on his back, his breathing growing more labored when Foggy takes off his shoes and places them neatly at the edge of the bed, and then tucks his socks inside. He drifts back up and smooths his fingers over the sharp lines of Matt’s hips, peeking through his low-riding jeans. Matt shivers under his touch, his eyes falling closed.

Foggy slides Matt’s lean legs out of his pants and then tugs off his underwear with care. Matt’s cock already more than half hard, dark and flushed and springing readily from his boxers. He gives it a little affectionate stroke that has Matt keening weakly in his throat, because it really is stupidly attractive dick, but leaves it alone.

Foggy’s overdressed. He thinks about shrugging off his shirt and stepping out of his pants, and then he thinks about Matt, laying there bare when Foggy hasn’t as much as taken off his shoes and an unexpected wave of heat rolls through his body. He leaves his clothes on.

Then he’s brought back to earth.

“Uh, I haven’t actually… done this,” he admits. “I mean, I know the, uh, basic concept, but I don’t think figuring out how to do this for the first time is as sexy as porn would let us believe…”

“Oh, that—that won’t be an issue,” Matt says thickly.

Foggy stares at him.

“I thought you haven’t slept with a guy before.”

Matt colors a little, squirming.

“I haven’t.”

“ _Huh_.” That—that is a mental image. “Okay, tell me what to do.”

“You have to… wait, I’ll…” Matt pushes himself up on his elbows, but Foggy shoves him back down, and reaches for the lube himself.

“You stay down,” Foggy tells him. “What do I do?”

Matt bites his lip and reaches out blindly.

“I—I’ll show you. Can I?” he asks and he sounds like he’s really asking for permission.

“Yeah, go ahead, Matty,” Foggy breathes out. Matt bites harder down on his lip. Foggy extends the lube to him and Matt’s searching fingers brush the bottle lightly before closing around it more firmly. He uncaps it and squeezes a peach pit sized glop unto his palm, slicking up his fingers. Foggy’s dick twitches trapped in his pants.

“It would be easier if I had a cushion.” Foggy just looks at him for a moment, and then he snaps to action. Matt raises his hips helpfully, letting Foggy shove a pillow under his lower back.

Matt worries his lower lip between his teeth for a moment and then releases it. There’s a small incisor-shaped indent left to the center of his lip. He reaches slowly between his own legs and pushes his index finger inside, careful but sure, until it’s buried to the second knuckle. Foggy watches him, breath held.

“You just gotta…” Matt mumbles, fucking himself slowly on his finger, “gotta stretch it out.”

“I—I think I got it,” Foggy says weakly. Matt’s forehead creases and his vacant eyes aim closer to Foggy’s mouth.

“I can do it myself if you’d rather.” Foggy licks his lips and shakes his head.

“No, I—I want to do this for you.”

Matt lets out a raspy exhale and slowly pulls his finger out of himself. He wipes it on the crease of his thigh; Foggy’s heartbeat ticks up.

“Lemme just… hold on,” he mutters and squeezes probably too much lube on his hand, but he doesn’t want to take chances. Matt tenses on the bed and then visibly lets the tension out of his body. Foggy bites the inside of his cheek.

“Tell me if I’m doing something wrong,” he says and pushes the tip past the taunt ring of muscles.

Matt gasps and his eyes fall open. Foggy stills.

“No, that’s—it’s good, don’t stop,” Matt says hoarsely. Foggy starts moving again. Matt’s fingers tangle in the bedsheets, the muscles of his jaw tightening. Foggy fucks him with his finger, watching his throat working in fascination.

It isn’t doing much for him, tactilely, but Matt squirms and in turn tenses and relaxes, and seeing him unravel like that just from his single finger inside him, sends a low buzz of warmth down his body. Foggy crooks his finger and Matt groans, his hips stuttering off the bed for a second, and the low buzz turns defeating.

“I can… I can take more,” Matt pants.

“Should I…”

“Just add a second finger,” Matt says, pinching his eyelids.

Foggy pulls out and dutifully presses two of his fingers back in.

The muscles put up some resistance, Matt’s breathing going heavy and halting.

“Now just—just, scissor your fingers a little—”

Foggy makes a scissoring motion with his fingers and twists them and is rewarded by a broken, breathy groan tearing itself from Matt’s throat. He does it again, the sound vibrating on his fingers and going straight to his dick.

“You love this, don’t you,” he says, voice so thick it barely sounds like his own. Matt shivers a little on the bed. Foggy shoves his fingers harshly on the thrust, drawing a weak keen from Matt. “Say you love this,” he demands.

“I—I love t-this,” Matt gasps, blinking tears out of his eyes, and rocks against his fingers. “Fog…”

Foggy takes out his fingers and pushes three of them instead. Matt lets out a high-pitched whimper as his muscles ripple and stretch to accommodate him.

He thinks about Matt on Elektra’s silk sheets, her nimble dainty fingers sliding down and disappearing into the curve of Matt’s ass and he shudders.

“You look so good like this,” he tells Matt, splaying his fingers. “So good for me.”

Matt throws back his head with a groan.

“God, I’m, I’m, that’s enough, I’m ready, _Foggy_ —”

Foggy wonders if Elektra made him work for it. Brought him right to the edge and then denied him, worked him up again and again until Matt was a crying, begging mess and only then she’d give him what he wanted. Or not. Maybe sometimes he didn’t get it. Maybe he had to work for it harder next time.

He curls his fingers, scraping his nails lightly on the soft walls, and Matt wails, digs his heels into the mattress like he doesn’t know if he wants to jerk back or lean into it. Foggy’s other hand wraps around Matt’s ankle, thumb stroking soothingly.

“Ask me.”

Matt trashes a little on the bed, Foggy’s fingers pumping him through it all.

“I— _god_ ,” Matt groans, clawing desperately at the sheets. “Please, I need—something, more, _please_.”

He wants to drag it out, he thinks Matt wants him to drag it out, but it’s too much, he’s _gone_. Matt gasps and bucks up when Foggy yanks his fingers out of him. He wipes them clumsily on the sheets and tears at his zipper, _finally_ fisting his throbbing hard dick.

“Condom,” he gasps. Matt gropes blindly on the bed, two inches from it. Foggy grabs the packet, rips it, rolls the condom on impatiently. Matt kicks him a little on the hip, mumbles, “Come on, come on.”

He pulls Matt closer by the knee, guides himself with his other hand and pushes in. Slowly, easing in, but Matt slams his hips back, forces himself down on Foggy’s cock with a hoarse moan. Wraps his legs around Foggy’s hips and bucks again. It’s too hot, too tight, almost painful and Foggy gulps desperately for air.

“Slow down,” he breathes.

Matt shoves against him, hips flush with his.

“Make me,” he growls.

Head swimming, Foggy doubles forward, splays his hand on Matt’s shoulder, leans on him with his whole weight. It tears a breathless groan from Matt. He tightens his legs, pulls Foggy even closer, impossibly close, the place where they’re jointed a knot of pulsing nerves impossible to sort out which is whose. His dick is squeezed in a scorching wet heat and his lungs are on fire. He’s behind the steering wheel but he’s driving against a force of nature.

Foggy thrusts, tries to keep up, fuck Matt as fast and hard as he wants him to, but Matt’s insatiate, always pushes back, grips him tighter, begs him for _more, more, please, I need more, please_ —

His orgasm hits him like a punch to the gut and leaves him panting and aching.

 

* * *

 

Foggy really should start going to classes.

It’s a feat when he leaves their room, these days; he barely picks up a book and there’s Matt’s arms snaking around him and his mouth nipping behind his ear, and they’ve already gone at it once in the morning, and it’s—it’s _exhausting_.

“Matt, come on,” he groans, tipping his head when Matt’s teeth graze a sensitive spot. “You’d think you’re going for the gold in sex Olympics here.”

“You know I’m an overachiever,” Matt quips, grinning into his neck.

“How about academic achievement? You know we do have to study sometime…”

But Matt isn’t listening. Matt is already trying to unbutton his shirt with one hand and palming Foggy through his pants with the other; Matt drags him backwards by the belt towards the bed, like he did yesterday, and the day before that, and—

Matt is becoming Foggy’s _Elektra_.

“Don’t.” Matt pauses with his fingers frozen on his zipper. Foggy gently pulls them away. “Don’t blow me off, Matt.”

“I’m not blowing you off.” He makes a considering pause. “I could blow you, though.”

“You can’t—you can’t _do that_. You can’t try to distract me with sex every time I want to have a serious conversation with you.” Matt looks stricken for a moment.

“That’s—that’s not… I don’t do that.”

“You kinda do.” Foggy sighs. “Look, I’m just gonna say it out right: you have a problem with emotional vulnerability.” Matt huffs out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, and you use physical intimacy as, as this _armor_ , to never let anyone close in, really in, and I’ll admit, for a while you had me for a sucker, but this can’t be all we are to each other.”

Matt’s face darkens and he scowls meanly.

“That’s just—well, if you think that sex is all we are to each other, Fog, then—”

“Stop. Just, stop this, okay?” Foggy takes a breath. “Stop trying to distract me, or get me mad, or—” He shakes his head. “I just want a moment, so I can talk to my _friend_.”

“We’re talking right now, Foggy,” Matt says obstinately.

“No, this isn’t talking, this is just me, banging my head on the wall, trying to get through this—this _stranger_.” He gestures in frustration and puts his clasped hands to his mouth briefly. “You know, we’ve been all over each other for the past few weeks, fucking all the time like rabbits, and it’s… funny, how I’ve never felt so distant from you than right now.”

“Do you… do you want to leave?” Matt asks, working his jaw. Foggy sighs.

“No, I don’t want to leave, Matt. I miss you.”

Matt’s mouth is moving, mumbling indistinctly, and Foggy can see him spinning deflections and excuses in his head—then his shoulders drop, and his tense body deflates.

“I—yeah,” he breathes.

“You’re important to me. You know that? Whatever else there is between us, your friendship is important to me, but ever since Elektra…”

Whatever soft expression was beginning to take place on Matt’s face drops instantly at the mention of her name.

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Like hell we’re not!” Foggy snaps.

Matt freezes, temporarily stunned by his outburst. Foggy rides it on.

“It’s fucked up! Okay?” he exclaims. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Matt, Elektra did a number on your head, and trying to fuck out your feelings is not helping the matter.”

“That’s not what this is,” Matt says stubbornly.

“No, this is not normal, Matt,” Foggy tells him flatly. “You’ve been teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown for I don’t know how long, hell, what do you call whatever happened right after Elektra left—”

Matt scoffs, shaking his head.

“If you’re going to insinuate that I’m not right in the head…” he says, curling his lips disdainfully.

“Of _course,_ you’re not right in the head.” Foggy grabs Matt’s precious face with both of his hands and tries to look into his vacant eyes hard enough for him to feel the intensity behind his stare. “You haven’t been in a long time and I’m _scared_ for you, okay? And maybe I should have said something, _definitely_ shouldn’t have slept with you, multiple times, that’s on me, but—” Matt’s face screws up painfully and he starts to shake his head in Foggy’s grasp.

“No, that’s—I came on to you, I…”

“Yeah, but you weren’t exactly at your best,” Foggy says with a sad, self-deprecating smile. Matt swallows with difficulty.

“I’m sorry.” God, there’s so much wrong with that, so many things that Foggy can’t even begin to unpack. Instead he shakes his head and sighs.

“I don’t want you to be sorry.”

“Then what do you want me to do,” Matt asks, wide-eyed with puzzled earnestness.

“I want you to get better, Matty,” Foggy says. “Get actual help and not do this thing where you pretend everything is fine until you can’t anymore.”

Matt licks his lips.

“I’m—I am fine, Foggy.”

“You’re not. You’re really not, buddy.” He sighs. “And I am done being an accessory to all your bad coping strategies.”

Matt takes a step back and raises his chin.

“You… you said you wouldn’t leave.”

“I’m not. I’m in too deep with you now. Think we’re stuck together for life.” It comes out too heavy and hangs between them like a physical weight. Foggy swallows, pushes past it. “But we have to stop doing this to each other.”

“What… what do say we do, then?” Matt asks, his curled fists twitching at his sides.

“I want us to be friends again,” Foggy says, his ribs feeling like they’re squeezing in his chest.

“‘Let’s just be friends?’” Matt quips, smirking mirthlessly.

“Don’t do this. Don’t cheapen it. You know what it means.” Matt’s eyes soften, eyebrows pulling together with a pained furrow. “And yeah, the sex is great, but… I care about you more than that.”

Matt’s chin quivers.

“I—me too. I do, I do care, Fog.” He takes a sharp breath. “I never meant to—”

“I know,” Foggy says softly.

Matt grips his elbows, pulling his arms tight around his middle.

“God, I almost ruined this, didn’t I? I almost—” he stops and jerks his head. “I’m sorry, Foggy.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he says sadly. Matt frowns at him.

“What do you have to be sorry about?”

Foggy thinks about all the things he has to answer for but only says, “You weren’t alone in making bad choices.” Matt bites down on his lip.

“But I started it. It all happened because of me, because of—” he cuts off sharply.

“Elektra,” Foggy finishes. “Come on, you can say her name.”

“ _Elektra,_ ” Matt sighs, the word knocking all the air from his lungs.

Isn’t not much but—it’s something. Foggy holds on to that.

Matt is shaking like a leaf. He goes limply when Foggy pulls him against himself, snakes his wiry hands around his middle. Foggy threads his fingertips through Matt’s wispy hair, and Matt presses in harder; they stay like that for a long moment.

At night, Matt still slips into his bed and Foggy lets him; but they don’t have sex, just hold each other wordlessly. Foggy curls his hand into the soft material of the hoodie Matt is wearing; Foggy’s hoodie, the one he stole from him all that time back. The one that now really is Matt’s. He rests his cheek on the top of Matt’s head, warm breath and that adorable, a little flat nose with a lopsided dent comforting in the crook of his neck.

 _I love you_ , Foggy thinks fiercely – and it’s telling, that all these weeks fucking, and this is the moment that does it for him – and then, just as fiercely, _I missed you_.

They shouldn’t be doing this anymore, this isn’t what normal friends do. And he’ll tell Matt to stop. But not now. Probably not tonight, and not tomorrow, but some day when Matt won’t feel anymore like if he’s not held together, he’ll splinter into little pieces. So Foggy holds him and tells himself this is for Matt; Foggy’s taken from him too much already, things Matt was in no state to give. He can’t say it out loud, and Matt is forgiving – or self-loathing, a bitter part of him whispers – so he won’t say anything either, but Foggy will make it up to him. He’ll follow him through the storm and hold him together, and be the kind of friend to him he should’ve been all along.

Foggy’s not letting Matt Murdock go.


End file.
